Josh Safdie propels a dubious table tennis champion toward compromised glory, Paul Thomas Anderson sends a washed-up revolutionary on a high-stakes mission, and Bi Gan dissolves the boundary between art and reality into a bittersweet exchange.
One Battle After Another is set for some big wins among the major categories, though Sinners could potentially pull off some major upsets.
There is no reading of Shakespeare’s plays more intimate than that which considers his grief over his son’s passing, and as Chloé Zhao lyrically visualises this transmutation of pain into poetry in Hamnet, the very act of storytelling bridges the chasm between life and death.
